Vapourware The problem with Speech (and your ideas for solutions)

[thesecret1]

I will reiterate what I said a year ago - speech skills shouldn't exist, nor should speech be turned into a minigame. Instead, speech should be a system that reacts to your character and especially his deeds. Want to intimidate somebody? Instead of checking some retarded skill, check whether the NPC has a reason to be intimidated - is your character some roided up barbarian with massive STR? Or is he perhaps famous for slaying droves of monsters? Then the NPC should be intimidated. If your character is just some rando, then it won't.

Similar for persuasion - a lot of the time, what it essentially boils down to is "trust me bro". Well then, does your character have a good reputation in town? Is he known to have helped many a poor sod? Or is he a known thief and miscreant? Or if the question is about whether the character is actually capable of some feat, does his track record indicate it?

Charisma and speech skills usually function as essentially mind control. Proper, realistic speech checks would instead be reactive to the character's appearance and deeds

 

[itsme]

You cant talk about speech/charisma without mentioning other solutions to a quest/dialogue. There cant only be speech options. Strength/dexterity/intelligence dialogue options must also be considered. In todays gay world a vast majority of players prefer the faggoty aka 'non violent' quest resolutions. Other solutions must be just as exciting as speech.

 

[MpuMngwana]

The point of Speech skills/solutions is to play a 'smooth talker' character archetype/fantasy (of which there are variations - con artists and snake oil salesmen, charismatic cult leaders, master diplomats, slippery buggers fast-talking their way out of sticky situations). Mini-games and implementing speech skills in combat do not fulfill that fantasy, and are thus inferior to not having speech skill in the first place. The latter is acceptable as a side benefit to playing a talker, but no-one who wants to play this archetype will be satisfied by giving his allies +1 to hit by cheering from the sidelines.

[Speech] options I also don't particularly like, they're way too automated and boring, and at some point players just start mindlessly clicking the option with brackets because they know it will result in victory. Adding the occasional "Gotcha! The speech check actually screwed you in the long run" moment (I think Dead Money had one of those, can't think of other examples) doesn't help much.

Anyway, some random ideas that may or may not end up in some future vaporware project (some have been mentioned in slightly different words):

- There are two layers to dialogue success. First, you need to unlock dialogue options by accumulating knowledge. Then, the chance success is determined by your overall reputation, your relationship with your conversation partner, your attributes and skills (including charisma and dialogue skills - local basement dwellers might find this hard to believe, but there are people who are genuinely charismatic and find it easier to convince others to believe/do things), and maybe even the conversation partner's skills.
- This can be made as complex as desired: for example, an attempt to intimidate someone might be made easier by: having the backing of a powerful organization, being known as a short-tempered/violent individual, being physically imposing, being well-armed, putting points into intimidate skill, etc.
- There shouldn't be a direct view as to which skill is used where. However, the player may be able to check (via attributes like Perception, or Intelligence, or some dedicated skills or whatever) the state of his conversation partner ("he started sweating profusely", "he seems angry", "he gestures something to the guards"), and also to estimate the effect various conversation options (based once again on attributes like Intuition, but also prior knowledge of the partner and experience - "he will like this", "this will probably break him") .
- This can work with or without the ideas up above, but instead of direct dialogue, the player decides on a course of action ("attempt to blackmail the baron", "ask about the tournament") and then the game rolls the dice and presents the result as a paragraph of text describing the proceedings, prompting the player for additional inputs as needed. I feel this would work better in isometric games than, say, first-person ones.
- Tangentially related to all this, not making all the skills equal opportunity would make a good idea (similar to how it's done in GURPS for example - the cost of upgrading a skill depends on both relevant attributes and the skill's innate "difficulty" rating)
- All this would probably result in an unreliable buggy mess of a system that 90% of the players would think doesn't work at all, and then you would have 5 lunatics on the Codex trying and failing to find the method to the madness.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Maybe speech could just be a bonus to the "evidence" system people keep suggesting. A character with low social skills can convince someone if they have all the proof and information they need, a talker can achieve the same with less by distracting and lying. Like someone IRL might sell you a shitty product by making it sound better than a superior alternative that got bad marketing, or you can either intimidate someone with real reasons for them to be afraid, or just making them think they do.

 

[Spukrian]

So you might get a list like this:
1. Fuck you. (Critically failed roll; this will actually lead to a bad outcome.)
2. Nice shoes. (Successful roll; the person will cooperate with the PC.)
3. If you won't give me the stone, I'll just take it. (Successful roll; you might think this would be a negative outcome but it leads to further dialogue.)
4. <Attack.> (No color coding as this just goes straight to combat.)

I think that the major problem with your system is that the player will feel like the choices don't actually represent what they want to say/happen, it would be like Dialogue Wheel all over again.

 

[NecroLord]

I just had an idea that eliminates the "auto-win" nature of some speech models, uses dice rolls, yet gives the player a certain amount of tactical agency in taking risks. It can work with either very coarse (1-5) or fine (1-100) skill spectrums.

In this model, dialogue trees are simple lists of options, just like we're used to. The complicated part is all "behind the screen".

In every exchange, every dialogue option is classified by the designer as leading towards either good, bad, or neutral/indeterminate outcomes. (Season to taste.)

For every option, roll against the appropriate social skill, modified by how hard it should be to figure out what the outcome is. ("Fuck you" leading to a bad social outcome will not be a difficult skill roll; however it may be hard to tell whether complimenting a king's shoes will please him or annoy him.)

No dice rolls are shown; this is all done "under the table".

For each option, on a successful skill roll, negative outcomes will be highlighted in red text; positive in green; neutral in blue.
For each unsuccessful skill roll, options will be in plain white text ("You don't know"), or on a failure, the wrong color.

So you might get a list like this:
1. Fuck you. (Critically failed roll; this will actually lead to a bad outcome.)
2. Nice shoes. (Successful roll; the person will cooperate with the PC.)
3. If you won't give me the stone, I'll just take it. (Successful roll; you might think this would be a negative outcome but it leads to further dialogue.)
4. <Attack.> (No color coding as this just goes straight to combat.)

In this way, just like with combat skills, a socially skilled character can be confident in their choices most of the time if they decide to follow the color coding, but they will never be 100% sure (even a guy with max sword skill misses sometimes; same thing here). So no options will be obviously "auto-win". Players will still be encouraged to actually read the text to see if they think it makes sense to say that, while their social skills will give them strong (but fallible) clues as to which is "right".

Where's the [SARCASTIC] option?

 

[Inec0rn]

The 1st reply is the best answer.

Minigames are awful, if I can mod them out of a game or cheat bypass them I will. It's not immersive to play ezmode pipedream/solitaire 4893x times to open doors and chests.

 

[Just Locus]

Make interesting and varied dialogue trees that let you figure out how to best to talk to people by paying attention to the dialogue, character, context, etc.

I've always wanted an RPG that meshes their equivalent "Intelligence" stat with the dialogue, like your dialogue options being more verbose, the higher it is. (The spirit of the dialogue would still be the same either way so you wouldn't have to record extra voice for the most part) or go with the Morrowind approach of having your "speech" stat govern people's attitude towards you and that's what will make them more or less easy-going.

The issue with Zombra's idea is that it's too easy to "game" and the player shouldn't second-guess what their character is going to say, and framing it as though the results will always be consistent relative to their speech skill when that's not actually the case is replacing the flaws with instead of fixing them.

 

[Skinwalker]

I've always wanted an RPG that meshes their equivalent "Intelligence" stat with the dialogue, like your dialogue options being more verbose, the higher it is. (The spirit of the dialogue would still be the same either way so you wouldn't have to record extra voice for the most part) or go with the Morrowind approach of having your "speech" stat govern people's attitude towards you and that's what will make them more or less easy-going.

Here's the problem: those extra dialogue options you "unlock" become a linear path to bonus rewards/whatever, and make the other options obsolete.

[Persuasion>50] You will come with me.
Could you please come with me? I could use some help.
I'm ordering you to come with me or I set your baby on fire!
The colonel has ordered you to come with me.
What can I do to change your mind and have you come with me?


5 dialogue options, 4 of them worthless. Might as well have a [Martial Artist] stat that instakills anyone in combat, instead of having to go through the usual route of... playing the game.

 

[Zombra]

[stuff]

Very interesting post!

What I was really trying to achieve with my idea was to make speech skills meaningful (and fine-grained), while removing the "pass/fail" or flat "success percentage" we usually see. I think my idea is an improvement on tradition, not the last word. I disagree that there is no gameplay involved in it - the player has to balance textual comprehension with trust in the color system, higher character skill equating higher trust but with no guarantees at any level.

I agree that devising a number of different interacting mechanics would be ideal for making dialogue as involved as combat traditionally is. Again, my idea above is not especially meant to be the ONLY system in a game. I'm reminded that there have been RPGs, well at least one, that displayed changing facial expressions on conversation "opponents". Was it the original Fallout that did that? Someone might change from bored-looking to angry-looking, and if you kept hammering that topic then they would stop talking to you or something else bad would happen. Although not every dialogue should last long enough for this to matter, interpreting facial expressions could be another interesting system for determining how to make a "target" happy, angry, etc. And of course making someone happy won't always be the desired outcome; goading someone into anger might make them blurt out desired information for example.

I disagree with your apparent sentiment that dialogue systems must be bespoke for every NPC. Certainly a designer would want to have different "enemy types", some that debuff certain skills perhaps, different immunities or vulnerabilities; but you could have two NPCs with the same basic makeup. I don't know if you've played Griftlands. Its dialogue conflicts are highly abstracted but it features a number of foundational abilities that immediately change the tenor and strategy for every conflict. For example, all cops have the ability to try to frame you, and you must protect against their "Planted Evidence" move instead of caring for your basic thesis. Skilled merchants all have the ability to haggle with you and drain your money, again unless you take steps to counter them, and in gameplay this is substantially different. In our theoretical RPG with complex dialogue, the exact macguffin might indeed be different for each NPC, but the underlying systems to get to each could easily be consistent (and ideally should, in my opinion).

Your idea of gathering clues throughout the setting to know the right things to say naturally has a great deal of merit, and can work in conjunction with proper systemic models.

 

[Zombra]

So you might get a list like this:
1. Fuck you. (Critically failed roll; this will actually lead to a bad outcome.)
2. Nice shoes. (Successful roll; the person will cooperate with the PC.)
3. If you won't give me the stone, I'll just take it. (Successful roll; you might think this would be a negative outcome but it leads to further dialogue.)
4. <Attack.> (No color coding as this just goes straight to combat.)

I think that the major problem with your system is that the player will feel like the choices don't actually represent what they want to say/happen, it would be like Dialogue Wheel all over again.

Well - my example you quoted has simple options to be sure. There's no reason that the response choices couldn't be exactly what your character says instead of going all Dragon Age 2. I hope I didn't imply that the only things your character can ever say are just a few options off a premade list. Every dialogue choice should still be handwritten and appropriate to the NPC/situation - though sometimes you can say the same thing as you said to someone else. ("Fuck you" is pretty universal.)

 

[Ol' Willy]

I will reiterate what I said a year ago - speech skills shouldn't exist, nor should speech be turned into a minigame. Instead, speech should be a system that reacts to your character and especially his deeds. Want to intimidate somebody? Instead of checking some retarded skill, check whether the NPC has a reason to be intimidated - is your character some roided up barbarian with massive STR? Or is he perhaps famous for slaying droves of monsters? Then the NPC should be intimidated. If your character is just some rando, then it won't.

Similar for persuasion - a lot of the time, what it essentially boils down to is "trust me bro". Well then, does your character have a good reputation in town? Is he known to have helped many a poor sod? Or is he a known thief and miscreant? Or if the question is about whether the character is actually capable of some feat, does his track record indicate it?

Charisma and speech skills usually function as essentially mind control. Proper, realistic speech checks would instead be reactive to the character's appearance and deeds

AoD/CS does some of that

Bodycount counter in AoD allows successful checks if you killed enough people. Word of Honour allows additional options

in CS, various modifiers like faction reputation affect initial disposition, which makes speech checks much harder or easier depending on what you did before